Read Ebook: The Log of the Sun: A Chronicle of Nature's Year by Beebe William

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Ebook has 594 lines and 64734 words, and 12 pages

the leaves at last shrivel, loosen, and their petioles break, it is merely a larger brown nut than usual that falls to the ground, the kernel of which will sprout next June and blossom into the big moth of delicate fawn tints, feathery horned, with those strange isinglass windows in his hind wings.

Luna--the weird, beautiful moon-moth, whose pale green hues and long graceful streamers make us realise how much beauty we miss if we neglect the night life of summer--when clad in her temporary shroud of silk, sometimes falls to the ground, or again the cocoon remains in the tree or bush where it was spun.

But Prometheus, the smallest of the quartet, has a way all his own. The elongated cocoon, looking like a silken finger, is woven about a leaf of sassafras. Even the long stem of the leaf is silk-girdled, and a strong band is looped about the twig to which the leaf is attached. Here, when all the leaves fall, he hangs, the plaything of every breeze, attracting the attention of all the hungry birds. But little does Prometheus care. Sparrows may hover about him and peck in vain; chickadees may clutch the dangling finger and pound with all their tiny might. Prometheus is "bound," indeed, and merely swings the faster, up and down, from side to side.

It is interesting to note that when two Prometheus cocoons, fastened upon their twigs, were suspended in a large cageful of native birds, it took a healthy chickadee just three days of hard pounding and unravelling to force a way through the silken envelopes to the chrysalids within. Such long continued and persistent labour for so comparatively small a morsel of food would not be profitable or even possible out-of-doors in winter. The bird would starve to death while forcing its way through the protecting silk.

These are only four of the many hundreds of cocoons, from the silken shrouds on the topmost branches to the jugnecked chrysalis of a sphinx moth--offering us the riddle of a winter's shelter buried in the cold, dark earth.

Is everything frozen tight? Has Nature's frost mortar cemented every stone in its bed? Then cut off the solid cups of the pitcher plants, and see what insects formed the last meal of these strange growths,--ants, flies, bugs, encased in ice like the fossil insects caught in the amber sap which flowed so many thousands of years ago.

When the fierce northwestern blast Cools sea and land so far and fast, Thou already slumberest deep; Woe and want thou canst outsleep.

Emerson.

CHAMELEONS IN FUR AND FEATHER

The colour of things in nature has been the subject of many volumes and yet it may be truthfully said that no two naturalists are wholly agreed on the interpretation of the countless hues of plants and animals. Some assert that all alleged instances of protective colouring and mimicry are merely the result of accident; while at the opposite swing of the pendulum we find theories, protective and mimetic, for the colours of even the tiny one-celled green plants which cover the bark of trees! Here is abundant opportunity for any observer of living nature to help toward the solution of these problems.

In a battle there are always two sides and at its finish one side always runs away while the other pursues. Thus it is in the wars of nature, only here the timid ones are always ready to flee, while the strong are equally prepared to pursue. It is only by constant vigilance that the little mice can save themselves from disappearing down the throats of their enemies, as under cover of darkness they snatch nervous mouthfuls of grain in the fields,--and hence their gray colour and their large, watchful eyes; but on the other hand, the baby owls in their hollow tree would starve if the parents were never able to swoop down in the darkness and surprise a mouse now and then,--hence the gray plumage and great eyes of the parent owls.

The most convincing proof of the reality of protective coloration is in the change of plumage or fur of some of the wild creatures to suit the season. In the far north, the grouse or ptarmigan, as they are called, do not keep feathers of the same colour the year round, as does our ruffed grouse; but change their dress no fewer than three times. When rocks and moss are buried deep beneath the snow, and a keen-eyed hawk appears, the white-feathered ptarmigan crouches and becomes an inanimate mound. Later in the year, with the increasing warmth, patches of gray and brown earth appear, and simultaneously, as if its feathers were really snowflakes, splashes of brown replace the pure white of the bird's plumage, and equally baffle the eye. Seeing one of these birds by itself, we could readily tell, from the colour of its plumage, the time of year and general aspect of the country from which it came. Its plumage is like a mirror which reflects the snow, the moss, or the lichens in turn. It is, indeed, a feathered chameleon, but with changes of colour taking place more slowly than is the case in the reptile.

We may discover changes somewhat similar, but furry instead of feathery, in the woods about our home. The fiercest of all the animals of our continent still evades the exterminating inroads of man; indeed it often puts his traps to shame, and wages destructive warfare in his very midst. I speak of the weasel,--the least of all his family, and yet, for his size, the most bloodthirsty and widely dreaded little demon of all the countryside. His is a name to conjure with among all the lesser wood-folk; the scent of his passing brings an almost helpless paralysis. And yet in some way he must be handicapped, for his slightly larger cousin, the mink, finds good hunting the year round, clad in a suit of rich brown; while the weasel, at the approach of winter, sheds his summer dress of chocolate hue and dons a pure white fur, a change which would seem to put the poor mice and rabbits at a hopeless disadvantage. Nevertheless the ermine, as he is now called , seems just able to hold his own, with all his evil slinking motions and bloodthirsty desires; for foxes, owls, and hawks take, in their turn, heavy toll. Nature is ever a repetition of the "House that Jack built";--this is the owl that ate the weasel that killed the mouse, and so on.

The little tail-tips of milady's ermine coat are black; and herein lies an interesting fact in the coloration of the weasel and one that, perhaps, gives a clue to some other hitherto inexplicable spots and markings on the fur, feathers, skin, and scales of wild creatures. Whatever the season, and whatever the colour of the weasel's coat,--brown or white,--the tip of the tail remains always black. This would seem, at first thought, a very bad thing for the little animal. Knowing so little of fear, he never tucks his tail between his legs, and, when shooting across an open expanse of snow, the black tip ever trailing after him would seem to mark him out for destruction by every observing hawk or fox.

But the very opposite is the case as Mr. Witmer Stone so well relates. "If you place a weasel in its winter white on new-fallen snow, in such a position that it casts no shadow, you will find that the black tip of the tail catches your eye and holds it in spite of yourself, so that at a little distance it is very difficult to follow the outline of the rest of the animal. Cover the tip of the tail with snow and you can see the rest of the weasel itself much more clearly; but as long as the black point is in sight, you see that, and that only.

"If a hawk or owl, or any other of the larger hunters of the woodland, were to give chase to a weasel and endeavour to pounce upon it, it would in all probability be the black tip of the tail it would see and strike at, while the weasel, darting ahead, would escape. It may, morever, serve as a guide, enabling the young weasels to follow their parents more readily through grass and brambles.

"One would suppose that this beautiful white fur of winter, literally as white as the snow, might prove a disadvantage at times by making its owner conspicuous when the ground is bare in winter, as it frequently is even in the North; yet though weasels are about more or less by day, you will seldom catch so much as a glimpse of one at such times, though you may hear their sharp chirrup close at hand. Though bold and fearless, they have the power of vanishing instantly, and the slightest alarm sends them to cover. I have seen one standing within reach of my hand in the sunshine on the exposed root of a tree, and while I was staring at it, it vanished like the flame of a candle blown out, without leaving me the slightest clue as to the direction it had taken. All the weasels I have ever seen, either in the woods or open meadows, disappeared in a similar manner."

To add to the completeness of proof that the change from brown to white is for protection,--in the case of the weasel, both to enable it to escape from the fox and to circumvent the rabbit,--the weasels in Florida, where snow is unknown, do not change colour, but remain brown throughout the whole year.

FEBRUARY

FEBRUARY FEATHERS

February holes are most interesting places and one never knows what will be found in the next one investigated. It is a good plan, in one's walks in the early fall, to make a mental map of all the auspicious looking trees and holes, and then go the rounds of these in winter--as a hunter follows his line of traps. An old, neglected orchard may seem perfectly barren of life; insects dead, leaves fallen, and sap frozen; but the warm hearts of these venerable trees may shelter much beside the larvae of boring beetles, and we may reap a winter harvest of which the farmer knows nothing.

Poke a stick into a knothole and stir up the leaves at the bottom of the cavity, and then look in. Two great yellow eyes may greet you, glaring intermittently, and sharp clicks may assail your ears. Reach in with your gloved hand and bring the screech owl out. He will blink in the sunshine, ruffling up his feathers until he is twice his real size. The light partly blinds him, but toss him into the air and he will fly without difficulty and select with ease a secluded perch. The instant he alights a wonderful transformation comes over him. He stiffens, draws himself as high as possible, and compresses his feathers until he seems naught but the slender, broken stump of some bough,--ragged topped , gray and lichened. It is little short of a miracle how this spluttering, saucer-eyed, feathered cat can melt away into woody fibre before our very eyes.

We quickly understand why in the daytime the little owl is so anxious to hide his form from public view. Although he can see well enough to fly and to perch, yet the bright sunlight on the snow is too dazzling to permit of swift and sure action. All the birds of the winter woods seem to know this and instantly take advantage of it. Sparrows, chickadees, and woodpeckers go nearly wild with excitement when they discover the little owl, hovering about him and occasionally making darts almost in his very face. We can well believe that as the sun sets, after an afternoon of such excitement, they flee in terror, selecting for that night's perch the densest tangle of sweetbrier to be found.

One hollow tree may yield a little gray owl, while from the next we may draw a red one; and the odd thing about this is that this difference in colour does not depend upon age, sex, or season, and no ornithologist can say why it occurs. What can these little fellows find to feed upon these cold nights, when the birds seek the most hidden and sheltered retreats? We might murder the next owl we come across; but would any fact we might discover in his poor stomach repay us for the thought of having needlessly cut short his life, with its pleasures and spring courtships, and the delight he will take in the half a dozen pearls over which he will soon watch?

A much better way is to examine the ground around his favourite roosting place, where we will find many pellets of fur and bones, with now and then a tiny skull. These tell the tale, and if at dusk we watch closely, we may see the screech owl look out of his door, stretch every limb, purr his shivering song, and silently launch out over the fields, a feathery, shadowy death to all small mice who scamper too far from their snow tunnels.

When you feel like making a new and charming acquaintance, take your way to a dense clump of snow-laden cedars, and look carefully over their trunks. If you are lucky you will spy a tiny gray form huddled close to the sheltered side of the bark, and if you are careful you may approach and catch in your hand the smallest of all our owls, for the saw-whet is a dreadfully sleepy fellow in the daytime. I knew of eleven of these little gray gnomes dozing in a clump of five small cedars.

The cedars are treasure-houses in winter, and many birds find shelter among the thick foliage, and feast upon the plentiful supply of berries, when elsewhere there seems little that could keep a bird's life in its body. When the tinkling of breaking icicles is taken up by the wind and re-echoed from the tops of the cedars, you may know that a flock of purple finches is near, and so greedy and busy are they that you may approach within a few feet. These birds are unfortunately named, as there is nothing purple about their plumage. The males are a delicate rose-red, while the females look like commonplace sparrows, streaked all over with black and brown.

There are other winter birds, whose home is in the North, with a similar type of coloration. Among the pines you may see a flock of birds, as large as a sparrow, with strange-looking beaks. The tips of the two mandibles are long, curved, and pointed, crossing each other at their ends. This looks like a deformity, but is in reality a splendid cone-opener and seed-extracter. These birds are the crossbills.

Even in the cold of a February day, we may, on very rare occasions, be fortunate enough to hear unexpected sounds, such as the rattle of a belted kingfisher, or the croak of a night heron; for these birds linger until every bit of pond or lake is sealed with ice; and when a thaw comes, a lonely bat may surprise us with a short flight through the frosty air, before it returns to its winter's trance.

Of course, in the vicinity of our towns and cities, the most noticeable birds at this season of the year are the English sparrows and the starlings, those two foreigners which have wrought such havoc among our native birds. Their mingled flocks fly up, not only from garbage piles and gutters, but from the thickets and fields which should be filled with our sweet-voiced American birds. It is no small matter for man heedlessly to interfere with Nature. What may be a harmless, or even useful, bird in its native land may prove a terrible scourge when introduced where there are no enemies to keep it in check. Nature is doing her best to even matters by letting albinism run riot among the sparrows, and best of all by teaching sparrow hawks to nest under our eaves and thus be on equal terms with their sparrow prey. The starlings are turning out to be worse than the sparrows. Already they are invading the haunts of our grackles and redwings.

On some cold day, when the sun is shining, visit all the orchards of which you know, and see if in one or more you cannot find a good-sized, gray, black, and white bird, which keeps to the topmost branch of a certain tree. Look at him carefully through your glasses, and if his beak is hooked, like that of a hawk, you may know that you are watching a northern shrike, or butcher bird. His manner is that of a hawk, and his appearance causes instant panic among small birds. If you watch long enough you may see him pursue and kill a goldfinch, or sparrow, and devour it. These birds are not even distantly related to the hawks, but have added a hawk's characteristics and appetite to the insect diet of their nearest relations. If ever shrikes will learn to confine their attacks to English sparrows, we should offer them every encouragement.

FISH LIFE

We have all looked down through the clear water of brook or pond and watched the gracefully poised trout or pickerel; but have we ever tried to imagine what the life of one of these aquatic beings is really like? "Water Babies" perhaps gives us the best idea of existence below the water, but if we spend one day each month for a year in trying to imagine ourselves in the place of the fish, we will see that a fish-eye view of life holds much of interest.

What a delightful sensation must it be to all but escape the eternal downpull of gravity, to float and turn and rise and fall at will, and all by the least twitch of tail or limb,--for fish have limbs, four of them, as truly as has a dog or horse, only instead of fingers or toes there are many delicate rays extending through the fin. These four limb-fins are useful chiefly as balancers, while the tail-fin is what sends the fish darting through the water, or turns it to right or left, with incredible swiftness.

If we were able to examine some inhabitant of the planet Mars our first interest would be to know with what senses they were endowed, and these finny creatures living in their denser medium, which after a few seconds would mean death to us, excite the same interest. They see, of course, having eyes, but do they feel, hear, and smell!

Probably the sense of taste is least developed. When a trout leaps at and catches a fly he does not stop to taste, otherwise the pheasant feather concealing the cruel hook would be of little use. When an animal catches its food in the water and swallows it whole, taste plays but a small part. Thus the tongue of a pelican is a tiny flap all but lost to view in its great bill.

Water is an excellent medium for carrying minute particles of matter and so the sense of smell is well developed. A bit of meat dropped into the sea will draw the fish from far and wide, and a slice of liver will sometimes bring a score of sharks and throw them into the greatest excitement.

Fishes are probably very near-sighted, but that they can distinguish details is apparent in the choice which a trout exhibits in taking certain coloured artificial flies. We may suppose from what we know of physics that when we lean over and look down into a pool, the fishy eyes which peer up at us discern only a dark, irregular mass. I have seen a pickerel dodge as quickly at a sudden cloud-shadow as at the motion of a man wielding a fish pole.

We can be less certain about the hearing of fishes. They have, however, very respectable inner ears, built on much the same plan as in higher animals. Indeed many fish, such as the grunts, make various sounds which are plainly audible even to our ears high above the water, and we cannot suppose that this is a useless accomplishment. But the ears of fishes and the line of tiny tubes which extends along the side may be more effective in recording the tremors of the water transmitted by moving objects than actual sound.

Watch a lazy catfish winding its way along near the bottom, with its barbels extended, and you will at once realise that fishes can feel, this function being very useful to those kinds which search for their food in the mud at the bottom.

Not a breath of air stirs the surface of the woodland pond, and the trees about the margin are reflected unbroken in its surface. The lilies and their pads lie motionless, and in and out through the shadowy depths, around the long stems, float a school of half a dozen little sunfish. They move slowly, turning from side to side all at once as if impelled by one idea. Now and then one will dart aside and snap up a beetle or mosquito larva, then swing back to its place among its fellows. Their beautiful scales flash scarlet, blue, and gold, and their little hand-and-foot fins are ever trembling and waving. They drift upward nearer the surface, the wide round eyes turning and twisting in their sockets, ever watchful for food and danger. Without warning a terrific splash scatters them, and when the ripples and bubbles cease, five frightened sunfish cringe in terror among the water plants of the bottom mud. Off to her nest goes the kingfisher, bearing to her brood the struggling sixth.

Later in the day, when danger seemed far off, a double-pointed vise shot toward the little group of "pumpkin seeds" and a great blue heron swallowed one of their number. Another, venturing too far beyond the protection of the lily stems and grass tangle of the shallows, fell victim to a voracious pickerel. But the most terrible fate befell when one day a black sinuous body came swiftly through the water. The fish had never seen its like before and yet some instinct told them that here was death indeed and they fled as fast as their fins could send them. The young otter had marked the trio and after it he sped, turning, twisting, following every movement with never a stop for breath until he had caught his prey.

But the life of a fish is not all tragedy, and the two remaining sunfish may live in peace. In spawning time they clear a little space close to the water of the inlet, pulling up the young weeds and pushing up the sandy bottom until a hollow, bowl-like nest is prepared. Thoreau tells us that here the fish "may be seen early in summer assiduously brooding, and driving away minnows and larger fishes, even its own species, which would disturb its ova, pursuing them a few feet, and circling round swiftly to its nest again; the minnows, like young sharks, instantly entering the empty nests, meanwhile, and swallowing the spawn, which is attached to the weeds and to the bottom, on the sunny side. The spawn is exposed to so many dangers that a very small proportion can ever become fishes, for beside being the constant prey of birds and fishes, a great many nests are made so near the shore, in shallow water, that they are left dry in a few days, as the river goes down. These and the lampreys are the only fishes' nests that I have observed, though the ova of some species may be seen floating on the surface. The sunfish are so careful of their charge that you may stand close by in the water and examine them at your leisure. I have thus stood over them half an hour at a time, and stroked them familiarly without frightening them, suffering them to nibble my fingers harmlessly, and seen them erect their dorsal fins in anger when my hand approached their ova, and have even taken them gently out of the water with my hand; though this cannot be accomplished by a sudden movement, however dexterous, for instant warning is conveyed to them through their denser element, but only by letting the fingers gradually close about them as they are poised over the palm, and with the utmost gentleness raising them slowly to the surface. Though stationary, they kept up a constant sculling or waving motion with their fins, which is exceedingly graceful, and expressive of their humble happiness; for unlike ours, the element in which they live is a stream which must be constantly resisted. From time to time they nibble the weeds at the bottom or overhanging their nests, or dart after a fly or worm. The dorsal fin, besides answering the purpose of a keel, with the anal, serves to keep the fish upright, for in shallow water, where this is not covered, they fall on their sides. As you stand thus stooping over the sunfish in its nest, the edges of the dorsal and caudal fins have a singular dusty golden reflection, and its eyes, which stand out from the head, are transparent and colourless. Seen in its native element, it is a very beautiful and compact fish, perfect in all its parts, and looks like a brilliant coin fresh from the mint. It is a perfect jewel of the river, the green, red, coppery, and golden reflections of its mottled sides being the concentration of such rays as struggle through the floating pads and flowers to the sandy bottom, and in harmony with the sunlit brown and yellow pebbles."

When the cold days of winter come and the ice begins to close over the pond, the sunfish become sluggish and keep near the bottom, half-hibernating but not unwilling to snap at any bit of food which may drift near them. Lying prone on the ice we may see them poising with slowly undulating fins, waiting, in their strange wide-eyed sleep, for the warmth which will bring food and active life again.

TENANTS OF WINTER BIRDS' NESTS

When we realise how our lives are hedged about by butchers, bakers, and luxury-makers, we often envy the wild creatures their independence. And yet, although each animal is capable of finding its own food and shelter and of avoiding all ordinary danger, there is much dependence, one upon another, among the little creatures of fur and feathers.

The first instinct of a gray squirrel, at the approach of winter, is to seek out a deep, warm, hollow limb, or trunk. Nowadays, however, these are not to be found in every grove. The precepts of modern forestry decree that all such unsightly places must be filled with cement and creosote and well sealed against the entrance of rain and snow. When hollows are not available, these hardy squirrels prepare their winter home in another way. Before the leaves have begun to loosen on their stalks, the little creatures set to work. The crows have long since deserted their rough nest of sticks in the top of some tall tree, and now the squirrels come, investigate, and adopt the forsaken bird's-nest as the foundation of their home. The sticks are pressed more tightly together, all interstices filled up, and then a superstructure of leafy twigs is woven overhead and all around. The leaves on these twigs, killed before their time, do not fall; and when the branches of the tree become bare, there remains in one of the uppermost crotches a big ball of leaves,--rain and snow proof, with a tiny entrance at one side.

On a stormy mid-winter afternoon we stand beneath the tree and, through the snowflakes driven past by the howling gale, we catch glimpses of the nest swaying high in air. Far over it leans, as the branches are whipped and bent by the wind, and yet so cunningly is it wrought that never a twig or leaf loosens. We can imagine the pair of little shadow-tails within, sleeping fearlessly throughout all the coming night.

It would seem that some exact sub-conscious sense of locality would be a more probable solution of this feat than the sense of smell, however keenly developed, when we consider that dozens of nuts may be hidden or buried in close proximity to the one sought by the squirrel.

Even though the birds seem to have vanished from the earth, and every mammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barren of interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain area of saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom every cause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalks from falling with their many brethren now buried beneath the snow.

The encircling silken bonds of Promethea and Cynthia cocoons will account for some; others will puzzle us until we have found the traces of some insect foe, whose girdling has killed the twig and thus prevented the leaf from falling at the usual time; some may be simply mechanical causes, where a broken twig crotch has fallen athwart another stem in the course of its downward fall. Then there is the pitiful remnant of a last summer's bird's-nest, with a mere skeleton of a floor all but disintegrated.

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